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Statistical analysis unveils the hidden patterns in Eurovision voting

2 May 2014

Voting for the Eurovision Song Contest has been scrutinised
by statistics experts at UCL and Imperial College London, who have found that
musical talent is unlikely to be the only element that wins scores – but that
the contest is not ‘stitched up’ at the UK’s expense.

The analysis of voting patterns over the past two decades
suggests that widespread support for certain countries’ acts is, however, not
driven by prejudice, as the media periodically suggests, but by positive
loyalties based on culture, geography, history and migration. But these effects
are relatively small – and the team found no evidence to support Sir Terry
Wogan’s criticism that the contest is marred by blatant bias and
discrimination.

Dr Gianluca Baio (UCL Statistical Science) said: “Migration
seems to be an interesting explanation for some of the patterns that we see in
the data. For example, Turkey
seems to be scored highly by German voters, possibly due to the large number of
Turkish people who have migrated to Germany, and potentially tele-vote
from there. But our analysis found no convincing evidence of negative bias or
discrimination against anyone – no country really has any enemies.”

Dr Baio and co-author Dr Marta Blangiardo (Imperial College
London) analysed how countries have given points to each other since Eurovision
introduced tele-voting in 1998.

In the study, published in the Journal of Applied Statistics, Dr Baio and Dr Blangiardo use
computer analysis to reveal clusters of countries with similar voting
behaviours, identifying the probability of each country belonging to a
particular voting bloc in any particular year.

In line with previous findings, the analysis of the data
suggests that voting congregates within four broad groups of nations that tend
to give each other points: one combining the former Yugoslavia, Switzerland and
Austria; one covering central and Southern Europe; plus a larger bloc which
includes the former Soviet bloc as well as the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia,
which cleaves more-or-less randomly into two groups each year.

Our analysis found no convincing evidence of negative bias or discrimination against anyone – no country really has any enemies

Dr Gianluca Baio (UCL Statistical Science)

“In our analysis we
used what we call a ‘Bayesian hierarchical formulation’ to model the scores,”
said Dr Blangiardo. “We took into account factors like the language of the song
and the gender of the singer both of which have known effects on the votes.
This left behind an underlying trend for us to measure. This trend is based on
cultural and geographical similarities, as well as migrations of people.”

This kind of model allows scientists to properly account for
underlying correlations in the observed data, which is due, for example, to the
presence of repeated voting behaviour over the years, rather than one-off
factors.

Bayesian hierarchical formulations are powerful statistical
tools which let statisticians study groups of data which are different, but
related, for instance wards within a hospital and hospitals within a city. Both
authors of this study are experts in medical statistics, who use these methods
to extract patterns of infections, illnesses and epidemics. However, while statistical
methods can identify trends in the data, they do not directly tell us about
people’s motivations or about underlying causes.

“The observed data can only suggest whether there is bias,
and there can be many reasons for this,” Dr Baio says. “To prove something
stronger like ‘discrimination’ or ‘favouritism’, we would need more complex
data, for example polling on people’s motivations for voting the way they do.

Looking at the results country by country, Greece seems to be systematically favoured by
its close neighbours Cyprus
and Albania, amidst a
general delivery of positive votes, which is thought to be driven by widespread
migrations of Greek citizens across Europe.
The UK, too, has friends, in
the form of Ireland, Malta and Italy. However the effect was not
substantial in the vast majority of these cases (including the UK’s), and thus
does not have a dramatic impact on the likelihood of a given performer winning.

In particular, negative bias was virtually invisible in the
study: no country systematically gives any other low points, meaning there is
no evidence of prejudice or discrimination against anyone. Even in the case of Albania, which
was consistently relatively unpopular in the voting, the effect was very small
and the authors did not consider this to statistically demonstrate a negative
bias.

Thus, despite frequent media claims to the contrary, the UK’s entries do not seem to be systematically
shunned by the rest of Europe.

“It is likely that other factors beyond those we have
studied explain most of the voting behaviour in the Eurovision Song Contest, as
the patterns we observe are relatively weak,” Dr Baio says. “In the days prior to
the final of the contest, the media usually suggest one of the entries as the
favourite. This may be based on objective qualities of the act, but also on
political reasons, such as the willingness to host the next edition of the
contest.”